Aspirational Politics

Remember 1997 and the feeling of 'euphoria' when Blair was swept into power?

After the slow decline of the Conservatives, suddenly we had the 'New Labour, New Britain' brand thrust upon us. A youthful, smiling Tony Blair swept into Downing Street.

The focus groups dictated the policies while the New Labour brand and the nice guy family man image gently lulled enough of the electorate into hoping for that New Britain and, more importantly, aspiring to vote for New Labour.

Blair offered hope and badly-needed investment in public services that had been chronically underfunded under the Tories.

Remember when Blair and New Labour were actually fashionable ?!

Media agency The Fish Can Sing report that David Cameron is number two in a list of influences on the middle classes.

Interestingly, number one is Jamie Oliver, whose cookbooks inhabit thousands of our kitchens, and whose programmes enthrall us as we aspire to live a healthier, less stressful life and eat better food.

Number three in the list, not to be forgotten, is Coldplay's Chris Martin, one of the influential celebrities involved in the Make Poverty History campaign and who, along with his wife and baby daughter, often graces the pages of our newspapers.

In an age of consumerism, when we are bombarded with pictures and soundbytes; when images are thrust upon our retinas so often each day demanding that we buy, do, go and have, Cameron is attempting to offer that we might be.

Geldof and Goldsmith are vital to the image. The traditional Lib Dems and a certain amount of Labour supporters - whom Cameron is attempting to win over - aspire to live in a world where poverty is history and where we can live according to ecological principles, or at least try to do so.

As we know, the reality is rather harsher, as Irwin Stelzer tried to explain on Radio 4, in The Sun and in The Guardian when Cameron suggested that capitalism is a form of extremism and that he might stand up to big business now and then.

Will the crucial 20 - 30 per cent of the electorate buy into the Cameron brand, just as millions of us have bought Jamie Oliver's books and Chris Martin's CDs and MP3s?

Elections have become PR campaigns for 'democracy'. A tick in a box is reduced to a crushing acceptance of the reality that only the edges of the status quo may be tinkered with.

Just like the millions of us who go to Tesco every week. Submissively and grudgingly, we trudge around the aisles, having to actively fight the attempts of the brightly-coloured packaging to trigger the memory of their respective TV advertisements from the depths of our brain.

If Cameron's brand, his policies and the celebrities hit your buy button, will a vote for him leave you feeling a bit happier about the future and a bit more positive about the state of the world?

Or will you feel a little bit empty, like when Jamie in Italy finishes and you gently but slowly realise you've been in a mild daydream whilst sat in front of the TV, eating your pasta that came from a packet with sauce that came from a jar?




'It's all about bucks kid, and the rest is just conversation.' - Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film, Wall Street.

Will The Sun shine for a new Prime Spinister?

Forests of newsprint and wells of ink continue to be sacrificed for the man of the moment.

The Guardian gave a positive endorsement of his thinking today, while their media correspondent reports that The Sun is thinking of backing him.

Rupert Murdoch 'appeared impressed' when he met with the Tory leader recently, we are told.

As a former corporate communications exec for Carlton Communications (now under the wing of ITV), Cameron and his team may succeed in securing the support of the Murdoch press, The Independent, The Guardian and The Mail.

Having had a Blair-Campbell team, are we now seeing a potential leader and spin doctor in one, in the shape of Cameron?

On the subject of the Murdoch press, last weekend's Sunday Times also featured a story on the front of its News Review section that suggests that there is a growing well of compassionate conservative thinking in the US.

According to the author, Cameron fits the image of what they are calling a 'crunchy conservative,' a term, it is implied, that derives from this socio-political grouping's penchant for crunchy organic vegetables.

On this note, it will be interesting to see how his speech to the Soil Assocation later this week is received in the media.

Of course, there is the danger that, like Blair, Cameron is attempting to seem all things to all voters, with his recent rejection of' 'isms'. Until we see more specifics on policy, it is probably too early to say. But we have to at least bear in mind this possibility.

The interesting point borne out in the Sunday Times story was that the writer, Rod Dreher, having prospered from the best opportunities and wealth creation of the Thatcher-Reagan era, is only now beginning to reject the consequences of the worst excesses of that era.

His children, like myself, and others younger than him, are now faced with a world that, despite its wealth of opportunities, also presents us with greater uncertainty and insecurity than ever before.

'Nobody can doubt that the free market policies pioneered by conservative governments in America and Britain in the 1980s shattered the shackles of statism and made both nations freer and richer. But they were based on fundamentally materialist assumptions about human nature which conservatives ought to have known were inaccurate and which would lead in time to a loss of purpose, of community, of idealism,' Dreher tells us.

The same political force that accelerated the creation of many of our political problems is now supposedly going to reject the worst elements of its policies and re-tailor them to meet the needs of communities, the environment and younger generations.

How palatable this idea will be to the business and socio-political base from which Cameron has risen, and how that base might shape the finer details of policy remains to be seen.


Update - Guido Fawkes has more on